


Too many hands to keep my eye on

by indefinissable



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Gen, spoilers for 5x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 06:40:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3519194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefinissable/pseuds/indefinissable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They pass the cigarette back and forth like it’s a peace offering and it feels hollow. It’s a cheap imitation of how things used to be, before college and the Army and shacking up with Mickey Milkovich. Ian is his brother, but Lip realizes that he doesn’t know if they’re friends anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too many hands to keep my eye on

Lip turns the car radio on and cranks the volume up. It’s too quiet and Amanda’s car is too clean and he just abandoned his brother to spend the night in a cell. He feels like maybe if the inane Top 40 is loud enough he won’t have to think, and the clawing panic in his chest might subside.

Fiona, curled up in the passenger seat, reaches to turn the volume back down a bit.

“He’ll be fine.” She’s trying to reassure herself just as much as the rest of them. “If any of us can handle jail, it’s Carl.”

It doesn’t work. She starts chewing on her thumbnail instead.

Ian falls asleep in the backseat. Lip glances at him in the rear-view mirror. Ian’s hands are shoved in the pockets of his hoodie and his forehead is pressed against the window. The glass fogs up with condensation as he breathes. In and out. He’s still far too pale.

Lip pulls up to the curb outside the house and cuts the ignition. Fiona twists around in her seat with that sad half-smile she does and puts her hand on Ian’s knee. “Hey, Sleepin’ Beauty. We’re home.”

Ian blinks awake groggily and gives his head a little shake. His hair is falling in his face, and he looks at them with his brow crinkled, like he used to when he was a kid and couldn’t find the words for something. It makes him look unbearably young.

Ian didn’t start talking until he was four, and it took him a couple years after that to really get the hang of it. Fiona had almost given up hope that he ever would. But that was always Ian. The quiet one who didn’t talk. The stoic one who didn’t cry when he shattered his collarbone and never asked for help until he almost got himself killed trying to do everything on his own.

Lip figures Ian’s still coming down off his meds, so he climbs out of the car and opens the back door, grips Ian’s arm and helps him stand. Ian sways a bit, closes his eyes and takes a breath, steadying himself on Lip’s shoulder.

“You good?” says Lip. Ian nods, but doesn’t let go of him.

They make their way slowly into the house and up the stairs together, like so many drunken nights stumbling home in the early morning, stifling their giggles as they bumped into furniture and tripped on the stairs. Now, Ian drags his feet like they’re made of lead, shuffling up the steps bent at the waist like he’s eighty instead of eighteen. His knuckles are white where his fingers grip Lip’s arm and he’s breathing hard, mouth set in a grim line. It looks like he’s carrying the whole world on his shoulders.

Ian lets go of Lip when they get to the bedroom. He takes the last few steps across the room by himself, then shrugs off his jacket and sits heavily on the bed. He puts his head in his hands and rubs at his face.

Lip hangs back in the doorway of the crowded room they used to share, watching him. His brother, who he can’t help. Lip should leave.

Ian looks up at him. “You heading out?”

His shoulders are hunched, elbows braced against his knees. Even sitting on the tiny bed, Lip thinks Ian has never looked smaller.

“Nah, man,” Lip says. “I’m beat. Thought I’d crash here for the night, head back in the morning, you know?”

Ian nods and breathes out. His relief is palpable. “Wanna smoke?”

“What, weed? Because I’m not sure-”

“No.” Ian looks amused. “The whole point of flushing my meds was to _stop_ feeling like a zombie.”

“Oh,” Lip says. “Right.”

It’s awkward for a second. Then Ian shakes his head and gives Lip that wry smile, the one that means he thinks Lip’s an idiot _._ He reaches into the top drawer of the bedside table for his cigarettes and lighter. Lip takes off his jacket and leaves it on the floor, then crosses the room in three steps. He kneels on the bed to crack the window open. Ian lights up a smoke, takes a drag, hands it to Lip.

They smoke together in silence on Ian’s old bed, sitting with their backs pressed against the wall. Lip can’t stop looking at Ian, the dark shadows like bruises under his eyes, the hollows of his cheeks, the thin line of his spine under his shirt. His hands look frail, still shaking from the comedown, veins standing out against his translucent skin.

They pass the cigarette back and forth like it’s a peace offering and it feels hollow. It’s a cheap imitation of how things used to be, before college and the Army and shacking up with Mickey Milkovich. Ian is his brother, but Lip realizes that he doesn’t know if they’re friends anymore.

Ian’s head winds up on Lip's shoulder. His hair is too long, flopping forward over his face, brushing against Lip’s chin. His breathing goes deep and even, and Lip thinks maybe he’s asleep again.

Lip stubs the cigarette out on the windowsill and pulls his phone out of his pocket, careful not to jostle Ian. There’s a text from Amanda, threatening to cut his dick off if someone jacks her car overnight. He wants to call her, wants to hear her voice, wants her to tell him he’s being a self-pitying jackass and then cajole him into phone sex in the bathroom.

There’s soft knock on the bedroom door. Lip puts his phone down and Fiona comes in. Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry, and she gives him a tired little smile.

“I put Liam in bed with Debbie,” she says.

“Probably help her sleep,” Lip says, nodding.

Ian mumbles sleepily and lifts his head from Lip’s shoulder, looks at Fiona. “Hey,” he says, so quiet it’s barely a word at all.

Fiona hesitates the same way Lip did. Then Ian pats the mattress on his other side and she practically melts down next to him on the bed. She reaches out and soothes her hand through his hair, down the nape of his neck, rubs at his back.

Lip is suddenly reminded that Ian was the first of them that Fiona really had to raise on her own. He vaguely remembers Ian, burning up with fever and puking all down the front of his shirt. Fiona muttering, “It’ll be fine. Just a bit farther, I promise. Just a bit farther.” Gripping Lip’s hand so tight it went numb as she dragged them both down the street.

Ian puts a hand on Fiona’s knee and sniffs. “So. Tell me about your husband. What happened?” He sounds exhausted, and so sad.

Fiona rakes a hand through her hair and huffs out a little breath. “Well, he’s a musician, and a really good guy. I dated him for like a week, and then we just sort of decided to get married. Impulse control issues, I guess. And I only made it three days before I fucked up. Now I think it might be over. I don’t know.”

“She fucked Jimmy,” Lip supplies when Fiona falls silent.

“Jimmy?” Ian is taken aback, his face comically shocked: eyes wide, brows drawn together, mouth hanging open. It’s the most expressive Lip has seen him in days. “Where the fuck has he been?”

Fiona rolls her eyes. “Who the fuck knows?”

The shock stays on Ian’s face for another beat. Then he’s laughing, throwing his head back and bracing a hand on his stomach as he chokes out, “Jesus Christ. I’m gone like one day and everything goes to shit without me.”

Lip bumps his shoulder against Ian’s while his brother shakes with laughter. “Guess we need you to stick around, then. Keep everything in order.”

Lip isn’t sure when the switch happens, but suddenly Ian is crying, folding in on himself to muffle quiet sobs against his hands. Fiona rests her chin on Ian’s shoulder, rubs his back and pries one of his hands away from his face, clutches it tightly and murmurs comfort into the fabric of his hoodie. Lip thinks she might be crying too. His eyes hurt, so he closes them. He reaches out to where their hands are linked, clasps their joined fingers.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Lip says, not because he thinks it’ll help but because if he doesn’t say anything he’ll drown. His voice cracks. “We’ll be okay.”

He doesn’t know how long they sit there like that, he and Fiona fencing Ian in while he breaks. Like if they just press close enough, if they just stay long enough, they can keep him from shattering. Ian’s too-thin shoulders shake and the gasps he stifles against his palm sound like he’s dying. Their little brother, who has never asked anyone for help.

Eventually, a shuffling out in the hall makes Lip look up. Debbie is standing in the doorway, watching them carefully. Liam is half-asleep in her arms, his face in the crook of her neck.

“Hey, Debs,” Fiona says quietly. “Come on in.”

Ian’s head snaps up and he blinks at Debbie like a deer caught in the headlights. “Fuck,” he mutters, and scrubs at his face with his sleeve. Fiona hands him a tissue and he tries to wipe away the tears and snot like he’s hiding evidence.

Debbie approaches the bed and lowers Liam onto Ian’s lap. Ian’s arms come up to cradle him and Liam curls into his brother, fisting one little hand into the front of Ian’s hoodie.

“Thanks,” Ian mutters. His face is swollen and blotchy and his eyes are bloodshot. He hesitates for a second, then reaches out and takes Debbie’s hand. “I’m really sorry for scaring you today, Debs.”

Debbie looks like she’s on the verge of tears. “You don’t have to apologize,” she says. “None of us are going anywhere.”

Ian looks up at her. He lets out a stuttering breath, then nods jerkily. A couple of tears roll down his face and Fiona reaches over to wipe them away with her thumb. Lip squeezes Ian’s knee and Debbie takes her place on the bed, in the empty space between Fiona and the wall. Fiona leans in to press a kiss to the top of her head.

They sit there together, lined up in a row on the little bed while Ian’s hitching breath evens out. He’s clearly on the verge of falling asleep again, eyes drifting shut and head starting to nod forward.

“Hey,” Lip says. “Wanna lie down?”

Ian shakes his head slowly, like it’s heavy. His cheek comes to rest on Lip’s shoulder again, leftover tears dampening Lip’s shirt.

Carl’s absence weighs like a blanket over the room, another reminder of how Lip has failed his brothers. Carl is in jail. Liam has brain damage. Ian’s mind is broken, maybe beyond repair. And Lip can’t save any of them.

“I can hear you thinking, asshole,” Ian mumbles into Lip’s shoulder. “Shut up.”

Lip huffs out a laugh that sounds wet to his own ears. “Yeah, okay.”

The house goes quiet. Everyone is still breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> The Gallagher siblings haven't been getting enough love for how amazing they were in Sunday's episode. Also, please note that Lip's feelings about Ian's mental illness do not reflect my own.
> 
> Come cry with me at izzyindefini.tumblr.com


End file.
